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The HSLDA has responded as follows:
There are two appellate options at this time.
First, we have been told that the family is appealing this decision to the California Supreme Court with their California counsel.HSLDA will file an amicus brief on behalf of our 13,500 member families in California. We will argue that a proper interpretation of California statutes makes it clear that parents may legally teach their own children under the private-school exemption. However, if the court disagrees with our statutory argument, we will argue that the California statutes as interpreted by the Court of Appeal violate the constitutional rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.HSLDA welcomes other organizations and persons to assist with the amicus process so that a full defense of home education, religious freedom, and parental rights can be given to the California Supreme Court.The second appellate option is to seek to have this particular decision “depublished.” Depublication is a decision that can only be made by the California Supreme Court. If the Court determines that the decision should stand, regarding this family, on the facts presented, but that the general pronouncements of law for all of homeschooling should not be determined by this case, then the Court has the option of “depublishing” the Court of Appeal’s decision. This would mean that the case is not binding precedent in California and has no effect on any other family.
HSLDA will take the lead in an effort to seek to have this case depublished.
You can sign the online petition requesting the the court depublish the ruling HERE.
UPDATE: California Homeschool Network is a good place to check in for the latest updates on the homeschooling ruling. CURRENT EVENTS OF INTEREST.
16 comments:
HSLDA is flat out wrong on this. There is absolutely no threat to homeschoolers from the proceedings there. One family with a long and documented history of runs ins with child welfare in CA was homeschooling without properly registering their home as a private school in CA. They got caught. They tried to hide behind homeschool laws that don’t exist and the judge called them on it. So now they are crying religious persecution.
This is a child welfare issue, not a homeschooling issue. More details are available at http://docsdomain.net/blog/?p=663
COD,
How can you say that there is no threat to other homeschoolers in CA or any other state, for that matter? Haven't we learned anything about how the judicial rulings have a snowball effect? The government is slowly trying to take over the parents job of raising the children. What about the families that cannot afford private school tuition but do not want their children subjected to public school ideaologies and doctrine?
This started out as a child welfare issue but it became a homeschooling issue when the courts decided to place constraints on how we can educate our children and where we are permitted to do so.
Concerned Future Homeschooling Mother in Oregon
I wish HSLDA were wrong, but the opinion as it stands has strong implications for homeschoolers. A careful reading of the court opinion makes it clear that this ruling extends well beyond this particular family. HSLDA, in it's consideration of "depublishing" is making a clear statement. The family, with whatever issues they have as to the welfare of their child are one thing (HSLDA is not representing them), but the consitutionality of homeschooling per se is quite another.
This family should be dealt with according to law and the welfare of the particular children involved is foremost, no doubt. Nevertheless, you cannot make widesweeping rulings that affect ALL homeschoolers based on a particular case. The court ruling should have dealt with the instant instead of over-reaching as it did.
I actually live in California, and you should have heard the talk shows on this issue. Many callers backed the ban because "parents will fill their kids' heads with junk".
The San Jose Mercury News had a balanced article Court Ruling would make California strictest on home-schooling.
It is hard to say for sure, but many homeschoolers in the Silicon Valley don't fit the religious fundamentalist stereotype -- I'd say there are many kids who are being homeschooled because parents don't want their kids held to the NCLB curricula, or the family's local school district is in crisis, etc.
The Governator has come out in favor of homeschooling:
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised today to ensure that parents have the right to homeschool their children, after a state appeals court ruling severely restricted the practice in California.
"Every California child deserves a quality education and parents should have the right to decide what's best for their children," the governor said in a statement. "Parents should not be penalized for acting in the best interests of their children's education. This outrageous ruling must be overturned by the courts and if the courts don't protect parents' rights then, as elected officials, we will."
Eugene Volokh's take on the issue
I also disagree with COD's analysis, which is essentially "No problem--just form a private school". As I understand it, if the ruling stands, enforcement will be left to the districts. And individual districts can be helpful or punitive -- more or less at the whim of the Superintendent or the school board.
Many callers backed the ban because "parents will fill their kids' heads with junk".
It's times like these that you see how little regard your basic person has for other people's freedom.
Volokh is interesting.
No right to homeschool your kids except on religious grounds (i.e. the Amish exception).
I wonder if folks like us can say we have a Liberal Arts religion?
Or a Real Math religion?
Or a "don't make my kid hate writing via endless peer workshopping" religion?
I just realized.....I'm about to become an unschooler at heart.
Only my form of unschooling would be: Please don't make my child Solve Problems.
Just let him memorize stuff.
Many callers backed the ban because "parents will fill their kids' heads with junk".
It's times like these that you see how little regard your basic person has for other people's freedom.
It's a world full of Mrs. Cravitz's.
(Busy body assuming neurotic neighbor in the show Bewitched)
One of the many, many, many frustrating aspects of this situation is that we are, as usual, talking inputs not outputs.
If the state wants to regulate education let it regulate kids' learning and achievement.
I'd be perfectly happy with regulations that require homeschooled kids to learn X amount of math each year (or however people worked it out) and demonstrate their knowledge on a test.
"No right to homeschool your kids except on religious grounds..."
Actually, this part I suspect that the court got correct. The leap from "not a right" to "can't legally do it unless have a teaching certificate" I find hard to follow.
I don't have a *right* to eat beef. But, since the legislature hasn't outlawed it, I still can.
-Mark Roulo
"I'd be perfectly happy with regulations that require homeschooled kids to learn X amount of math each year (or however people worked it out) and demonstrate their knowledge on a test."
I can live with this if we apply it consistently. So ... 'homeschooled kid scores below the cut line and has to go to public school' implies something like 'public school kid scores below the cut line and _____.'
And the same holds for *all* the other private schools, too.
Otherwise we are holding the homeschoolers to a standard that isn't applied to the other schools. That violates my sense of fairness.
-Mark Roulo
I'd be perfectly happy with regulations that require homeschooled kids to learn X amount of math each year (or however people worked it out) and demonstrate their knowledge on a test.
I wouldn't. First, in my state, private schoolers aren't required to do this. The regulations for public school exist because public schools spend public tax dollars. Private schools don't.
Also, reasons for homeschooling, for many families, include: allowing individual children to learn at their own pace and to allowing them to be evaluated by means other than tests (especially standardized tests). Not everyone believes that it's important for all kids to know the same stuff at the same age. And not everyone believes that the best way to measure that knowledge is by testing. The more you start making homeschoolers behave like public schoolers, the less it's really an alternative to public school.
"The more you start making homeschoolers behave like public schoolers, the less it's really an alternative to public school."
You missed the subtle evil of my okay-ed-ness :-). I want the public and private schools to suffer the same sanctions that the homeschoolers would. So ... score below the 25% cut-line and can't homeschool? No problem, but then score below the 25% cutline and the kids would have to be removed from the public school (and, because the state *has* to educate them, they would have to be enrolled somewhere, probably a private school, but with the state paying for it). I expect the cut-lines to be *VERY* low if the public schools have to play by the same rules.
-Mark Roulo
"I actually live in California, and you should have heard the talk shows on this issue. Many callers backed the ban because "parents will fill their kids' heads with junk"."
And here they are...
Nice to see such tolerance and understanding.
I went to public school in California, and I've homeschooled for seventeen years.
It't not that hard to teach a child...who is hard working, disciplined, interested, well fed, healthy, well socialized, involved and comfortable. One who is not bullied, who is held accountable, and who is given as much control over their own life as they can handle, and whose opinions have impact on how their day and their education goes.
That is homeschool, or can be. What child would not want something like that?
That can never be public school.
Kids can survive public school, though. I did. But I'd rather have had what gladly I give my kids.
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